Discover Practical Ways to Protect Yourself from Identity Theft

Have you heard the term straight from the horse's mouth? While it's okay to learn about protecting yourself from books and law enforcement agencies, the real teachers are the reformed identity thieves themselves.

According to the U.S. Postal Service, there were almost 12 million incidents of identity theft in the United States in 2006 at a cost of 6.3 billion to consumers. This alarming statistic has increased the alert level of many consumers; however most are still unaware of the specific tactics these identity thieves use. After an extensive interview, one notorious identity thief, revealed 4 misconceptions she used to separate you from your money.

Misconception # 1 All Identity Thieves Are Men This is a common misconception that our identity thief says makes her job so much easier. The problem is that most of the major media outlets portray identity thieves as men. The reality is that many of these criminals are well dressed attractive women. To avoid falling into a trap, watch your personal information with both men and women. Studies have shown that both men and women let their guards down around women more so than they do around men. Everyone is a potential identity thief. This does not mean you should be paranoid rather you should simply be very careful.

Misconception # 2 Trusting Your Friendly Store Clerk or Waiter This one is hard to combat because in most cases you are required to hand over personal information and or documents to store clerks or waiters at restaurants. What you may not know is that some of those people who are waiting on you may in fact have two jobs. By day they work in the local department store but at night they have a side job. Their side job is simply to provide a few customers credit card numbers to their friends. This works so well because they have access to your credit card or account number. The only way to really combat this is to review your account statements. It is also a good idea to keep a journal of expenditures greater than a certain dollar amount.

If you are really serious about this, you might want to establish an expenditure limit on your credit card. This would allow the credit card company to alert you whenever a transaction occurs over a certain dollar figure. This is very helpful because if you are like me, you use your debit or credit card for everything and tracking each minor expense would be very tedious.

Misconception # 3 Throwing Away My Credit Offers Immediately Protects Me Can I be very honest with you? Many of these credit card companies could care less if you have your identity stolen. Part of the reason is because they will make it incredibly difficult for you to restore your good name and in some cases require you to furnish proof that even Perry Mason or Matlock could not locate. The bottom line is if you are serious about protecting your identity, you should shred your documents before throwing them away. You should also separate the contents of the items and toss them in different trash bins. I would also encourage you to shred the reply envelopes as well. You can never be too safe.

The reality of the situation is this, it only takes one blank credit card application or one credit card statement for you to fall victim to these thieves. While you may think of this as simply throwing your trash away, a thief lurks in the darkness waiting for you to let your guard down.

Quick Tip: If you still feel uneasy about just shredding your personal mail, you can also submerge the documents in water to ensure that it becomes too much of a hassle for even the best identity thieves. The goal is to make it very hard for you or your family to become victims.

Misconception # 4 Having Mail Delivered to Your Home Are you starting to see the point now? At all costs, you must maintain your privacy. Why is this important? Well, if your mail sits unattended, it won't be long before someone attends to it. You get the idea.

As a precaution, drop your outgoing mail into one of the U.S. Postal mailboxes. Do not drop personal mail in your company's outgoing mail slot either. Don't give anyone an opportunity to have access to your personal matters. Once a thief has your mail, they simply change the address and now have your credit information sent to them. I wonder what they would do then.

Stop trying to make it without help! Listen, very few people can successfully protect themselves and their families without help. The major problem is that you have been trying to do it alone and it is just NOT effective. How much difference would it make in your life if you had a proven guide who has been in the trenches? There are many companies that provide affordable identity theft solutions for people like you and me.

These services do work. Of course some work better than others but there are a few things you can look for when evaluating a potential service. First, do they have the endorsement from law enforcement officials or agencies? Lastly, is this an established company or some fly by night operation?

Article Source: http://www.orbitaloc.com/

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